Monday, January 22, 2007

Faith... How do you spell it?

'Faith' is a word that is so basic to our Christian walk that we take it for granted to the point that maybe we forget what it really means .Faith … it is spelled T…R…U…S…T ! Biblical faith is simple , childlike trust.Is it enough to mouth the words “In God we Trust”? God declares in Is. 29:13 “ …this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me" There is more to trusting God than a simple acknowledgment. Our trust in Him must come from our hearts … and it must change our life.

1. If we trust God we will be guided by Him…. “Trust in the Lord with all your hearts and lean not on your own understanding" (Prov. 3:5) Someone about to traverse through dangerous, unfamiliar territory would be foolish to trust himself to find his way. God has given us a road map, His Word, to guide us through this life.In bible times a well trained servant girl would need no verbal instructions , she would be guided by her mistress’s eyes. In Psalm 32:8 God says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go .. I will guide you with my eye.” The more we trust Him, the more eagerly we will study His Word to know His directions.

2. If we trust God , He will be our authority , we will not believe anything contrary to His Word - … One day I was grocery shopping in Safeway and I overheard two childish voices arguing in the next aisle. “Jesus is good !” declared one voice. “No!” argued the other emphatically, “He is bad!” Back and forth went the heated words. Curious , I pushed my cart up the aisle and around the corner . I saw two little boys , about 5 years old, one was white and one was East Indian. Both boys had total trust in the authority of their parents and that what they had been taught was true.If we trust God we will believe that what He says . Science , man’s attempt at truth, must constantly be updated and today’s discoveries often contradict what was declared true yesterday. God’s truth has yet to be found in error… His every word is true. “Forever O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.” Psalm 119:89

3. If we trust God we will be at peace . A king once offered a prize to the artist who could best portray ‘peace’ in a painting. Many artists competed for the prize. Everyone thought that a painting of a lake, it’s surface a mirror reflecting the fluffy white clouds in a blue sky was a picture of perfect peace. But the king awarded the prize to a painting that depicted a rugged mountain under an angry stormy sky , a flash of lightning cutting across the dark sky. A rushing waterfall tumbled over the rocky cliff. Behind the waterfall , out of a crack in a stone grew a bush in which a mother bird sat on her nest, perfectly still and peaceful.Peace is not the absence of a storm, true peace is finding a calm place in the midst of the storm around us.Isaiah 26:3 “ Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.”

4. If we trust God we will not worry or fret about the circumstances of our life or the trials that upset us…God says we should not be anxious about anything "because He cares for us. "( I Peter 5:7) And we know that He will work all things together for good. ( Romans 8:28 ).For me the hardest time to trust God is when I get into a situation as a result of my own carelessness .This summer my husband and I we were traveling from Dawson Creek to Jasper Park. In between there are long stretches of highway between towns with very little traffic. We had planned to fill up in Grand Cache but for some reason we were distracted and we forgot !! When we realized our mistake , we hoped for a miracle to make it to the next town. But we ran out of gas with about 37 km. to go. Our hearts sank because we could think of no easy solution to our predicament… My husband and I held hands and prayed , asking God to help us.. He did… A white pick up truck came toward us, pulled over and out stepped a Serbian immigrant who worked for an oil company in Edmonton. Hearing we had run out of gas he cheerfully declared , “I have some !” He took a tank out of the back of his pick up and proceeded to pour the gas into our tank. My husband said we just needed enough to get to the gas station, but he just smiled and kept pouring , saying the gas had been sitting for awhile and he wanted to get rid of it. He gave us over half a tank of gas and refused to take a penny for it. Our trust in God was rewarded, and what looked like an insurmountable problem worked out for good. Not only did we receive free gas but we remember the Serbian man with fondness and pray for him and his family.

5. If we trust God we will fear Him. We all trust the laws of gravity.. but we also fear them because we know that disobeying them will be to our hurt. No one , unless he has a death wish, will jump out of an airplane without a parachute, no one purposely steps off a roof without a ladder, or drops a glass heirloom vase on the floor.God never changes, His character is forever the same, His word is everlasting. Psalm 2:12 says ,”Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him !” God is a loving heavenly Father to all who put their trust in Him, but He is also a holy God who hates sin and evil.

Placing our trust in God is without question the wisest , safest , most rewarding thing we can do….“In God we Trust” - with all our hearts!

2 comments:

Thank-you again Julie! And ya I totally trusted God to be my eyes as I drove blindedly through the streets against traffic this morning in the rainy dark...I couldn't see a thing seriously, but God protected me by laying rocks on the side of the road for me to drive over warning me that I was nearing the ditch. Thank God for rocks!!!

yes, I'm too reminded of times where I chose to trust instead of fear and it is sweet fellowship with our Heavenly Father when we do that. We were once on a mountain range with our motorcyle and long after the time our gas should have run out, the bike continued to run until we came to a gas station. I was on the back praying that we would have enough. We knew that God have provided the gas.

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